Tag archives for Politics

Paul Keating hit the nail on the head. He has always had a way of doing that. He said recently that no recent government has had a ‘narrative’. In other words, governments – or oppositions for that matter – cannot sell a vision of what they want to achieve. They can’t do it at either […]

What is the role of government? It is not a question you hear much unless it is in a very narrow context. Government should do this or do that. It is interesting though, to think in a much broader sense as to what we want governments to do for us. In order to get a […]

We all have opinions we truly believe at the time. We also get things wrong from time to time. Maybe we didn’t completely understand the situation, or maybe there were unforeseen circumstances. Sometimes, what seems like a simple option, has layers of complexity we didn’t understand because we were not intimately involved in the area. In forming […]

Having laws is the problem. It has changed how we see things. Let’s start with the first group of humans to ever try living together. Way back in the distant past, there must have been some driver to bring individuals together into a village of sorts. Maybe it was for companionship. Maybe it was to […]

How stupid are we? Every four years we go through a political dance. They tell us one thing and we half believe it. We elect them. They break their promises and we sound outraged. What is going on? Lets start with promises. How can a political party promise a budgetary result? There are so many things […]

Like a coffin being carried around a cemetery, we seem to have lost the plot. Australian politics today has become a killing field of petty arguments. When the front page of newspapers over several days feature a stupid comment on whether poorer people have less cars, you have to wonder if our view of the […]

The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, made a comment that made me think. He said “The role of opposition is not to put forward alternate policy. The role of opposition is to review what the government puts forward and support or oppose it.” And I guess that is a lot of what is wrong with opposition […]

There may be 50 shades of grey, but in years to come, they will remember only one shade. Gray power. Full cycle. Roll back the decades or even a few centuries, to the earlier days of democracy. A political career was not a “school to retirement” undertaking. Politicians were typically successful people in society who […]

What is it about TV interviews that stops interviewers putting politicians on the spot? Is it fear that they will never agree to an interview again? I like Sarah Ferguson, and think she is probably the best interviewer around at the moment. Her nailing of Joe Hockey after the budget was a classic. I just wish they […]

In Australian politics there are two ideologies at play. The Liberal ideology is one of a market driven society. If government just gets out of the way, the market will ensure we are all prosperous and happy. Plenty of jobs and plenty of goods to buy. They believe government stifles free enterprise. Too much government […]

It is a bit like a spy novel. Nothing is what it seems. We are promised no surprises. We naively expect no surprises. What we didn’t see coming is that if you have no information, you cannot be surprised. No broken promises, just a different path to the same end. Turn back the boats seemed […]

Thank you Cory Bernardi for opening my eyes. Until I heard about your book I was sadly disillusioned. My revelation started when I read this about abortion. “The political pressure from the left has ushered us into a morbid new world.” So the left is responsible for abortions? At least we don’t have conservatives having […]

Why say anything when the other person is talking up their own storm. Labor is unusually quiet for an opposition. I don’t know if this is because they want to be, or because they are not getting reported. In any case it is working. The polls are showing they are going ahead in leaps and […]

I am seeing a trend that I don’t like. Journalists are letting politicians get away with avoiding topics. Not all journalists, but there seem to be more every day. Take this example. Liberal senator Michael Keenan was asked if it changing eligibility rules for bushfire relief, and depriving some people of payment, was a cruel […]